Scream
by Primsong
Summary: The night was dark and still... but not for long. Second Doctor with Jamie & Victoria, plus an unexpected visit to the First Doctor's Susan.


**Scream**

_A/N: _

_Some of the Doctor's companions were just a little noisy._

_The Second Doctor with Jamie and Victoria make an unexpected visit to the First Doctor's Susan. _

--

"Where are we?" Victoria wondered. "It's dark outside."

The Doctor rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. "Earth. Somewhere in Britain. And judging by the readings, that dark is mostly full of trees. Probably farmland." He considered the various dials and frowned. "But I do wonder what year it is."

Jamie raised a brow at him, not entirely surprised. "Y' mean you don't know?"

"Well, you see, I've been having some trouble with the chronometrical readings lately. Probably just a loose connection or two. Hm."

"Oh, aye. I'm sure there's a loose connection."

Victoria giggled. The Doctor gave Jamie a good lashing with his eyebrows. He looked back up the dark scanner screen. "It looks safe enough, how about the two of you go out and have a nice walk while I look into it."

"Tryin' to get rid o' us?"

"Only for a moment. Besides, I'm sure Victoria would like a chance to get some fresh air here on Earth. A nice stroll in the moonlight would do her good."

Victoria gave a little squeal of happiness. "So we're really are on Earth again? And we can really go out?"

The Doctor was already prying at one of the console panels with a small tool. "Yes, yes, yes. Hm. Go on, now, take her along, Jamie. This won't be long." He stuck his tool in his mouth and smacked at the door control.

"Come on, Jamie!" Victoria said, practically towing the Scot out the door as he grabbed up his vest and shrugged into it.

They stepped out onto soft, fragrant ground. "It's an orchard!" Victoria breathed. "This must be a farm. Oh, let's go see, Jamie."

"All right. Lead the way," he said good-naturedly. He pulled an apple from one of the trees and took an experimental bite, spitting it out even as he did so. "Phah!"

"Not ripe yet?"

"Noo, it's ripe enough, but I think I hit a worm. Plah!"

"Look, a barn. A real wood barn. Oh, just smell it, Jamie."

"I smell it a'right."

"Isn't it wonderful?"

He wrinkled up his nose. "I don't know if I'd say that."

"I mean, it smells so nice and Earth-like."

He nodded. "Aye. I ken ye now."

--

Susan sighed and slapped the flank on the last cow as they settled into their roomy stalls. The chickens were settled down to roost here and there about the barn, headless balls of fluffed feathers in the light of her kerosene lantern.

Only the rooster still eyed her cautiously, his bright eye beneath his comb glittering in the light.; he reminded her of David, always so alert and protective, at least when he was awake. She'd never needed as much sleep as her human husband did; the night-settling chores of their little farm were hers and hers alone, so he could sleep and be up with the sun to work either with the committees of men he taught farming to, or out in the fields himself.

Chores finished for now, she chose a comfortable haybale and trimmed her lantern, pulling out a book to read.

--

Victoria ran her hand over the weathered wood. "Let's see if its unlocked. I'd so like to see real cows and chickens again."

Jamie nodded. "Aye, real kine an' fowl, an' not made of machinery."

Smiling at her enthusiasm, he allowed her to tow him over to the dimly visible side door. An experimental tug found it was not only unlocked, but swinging smooth and soundless on its hinge. The heady mingled scents of hay and grain, leather and animals came out to greet them.

Victoria jiggled Jamie's sleeve. "Maybe we could gather some eggs! If you know how?" she whispered at him. "We could take them to the Doctor."

Jamie grinned back at her, understanding her enthusiasm for the mundane familiarity of it. "I had to gather them when I was a wee lad. I think I can remember how. But I didn't use my skirt," he teased.

--

Susan looked up from her book with a frown, thinking she'd heard whispers, people's voices. She thought all the raiders and brigands had been chased off these lands years ago. Still….setting aside the book she looked around for anything she could use as a weapon.

--

Jamie and Victoria tiptoed along.

"See?" Victoria giggled softly as she expertly slipped her hand underneath a sleepy hen. "Eggs!"

Jamie tried to imitate her and got a sharp peck on the hand. "Ow!" he complained.

"Silly, that's a rooster!"

--

Susan hefted the heavy spade in one hand, taking up the lantern with the other to investigate. She edged up to the side of a stall and peered around. It was a girl, stealing her chickens! She felt much braver seeing it was only a girl, and decided she would deal with this one herself.

"Stop!" she cried in what she hoped was a brave, firm voice. Victoria whirled around, an egg splatting to the ground and found a silhouetted figure coming at her with a spade.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee!" Victoria screamed, both from surprise and from suddenly being accosted by someone with a weapon. "Jamieeeeee!" She smacked hard at the arm of her assailant and the spade clattered to the ground.

"Heyaaa!" Jamie shouted in reply, flinging the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be the rooster. "Victoria, run!"

"Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" Susan shrieked at the same time. She'd been hit, and now there was another person! A rooster came straight at her face and she swung the lantern up automatically, smacking it out of the air.

"Awk-bawkaaack!" the rooster emitted as it went flapping and spinning half-stunned out the window. Finishing its trajectory, the lantern slipped from Susan's grasp and crashed onto the hay-strewn floor. Immediately, flames began shooting up, blazing with the straw, licking at the wood of the stalls.

"Aaaiiiiieeeee!" screamed Susan and Victoria in unison.

"Fiiiire!" screamed Jamie.

Chickens squawked, flapping around the barn, bouncing off of walls and bales before richoceting out the windows and doors. The cattle mooed and bawled with alarm. Jamie and Victoria, both programmed from youth to protect their family's livestock, immediately ran to open the gates of the stalls, smacking the cows into a stampede out and away from the spreading flames.

Susan, whose farming experience was now overwhelmed with other concerns, just screamed. Jamie yanked open the last pen, only belatedly registering he'd just freed a bull.

"Aaaaaaah!" he cried, climbing straight up the side of the stalls and perching at the top like a rooster in a kilt. "Victoria! Get awa', it's a buuuuull!"

"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" shrieked both Victoria and Susan in unison. Victoria fled out the side-door they'd first come in, Susan out the main door, following the cows. The bull was right behind her.

--

David jolted upright in his bed. Was that Susan, screaming out by the barn? She didn't usually do that at night. And it sounded like the animals were all stirred up too. Frowning with concern he scrambled out of bed, stuffing his feet into his tall black farming boots and grabbing his red robe from its hook on the wall to lash it about him.

He opened the kitchen door and his eyes widened with alarm. "Aaaaaah! Susan! The barn, it's on fiiiiire!"

He ran out into the farmyard. Smoke was hazing the already dark air, the windows and cracks between the boards glowing orange with the spreading flames. "Susaaaaan!" He ran around the nearest side of the barn. A shadowy figure in a skirt was just ahead. He ran up and grabbed its hand, towing the person towards safety. The hand felt wrong.

"Gaaaaaaaaah!" shrieked David as the person he thought was his wife turned out to be a strange man in a skirt.

Jamie, who'd been suddenly accosted by someone at an unknown period in Britain wearing a red robe also responded badly. He yanked his hand away. "Ye'll not catch us that easy, y' filthy redcoat!" He whipped out his dirk.

"Aaaaaiiiii!" David cried again, now at the sight of an unexpected glinting weapon on top of his barn being on fire and his wife missing. Brigands! And he was unarmed! He ran back towards his house, thinking to snatch up his gun.

Jamie started to pursue him, then heard a woman's scream in the darkness. "Victoria!" he cried, turning back towards the side of the barn. "Victorrrrrria!

"Susan!" David called at the same time, suddenly running the other way, out into the field. "I'm comiiiing!"

--

"Jamieeeeee!" Victoria screamed, just sure he'd been trapped in that burning barn, or killed by that bull.

"Here I am!" he gasped, running up to her.

She screamed again, this time with relief. "Oh! Oh! Jamie! You're safe!"

He kicked a panicked hen aside and took her arm, towing her off through the orchard. "We've got to get out of here, come on!"

Gasping, the two of them ran up to the welcome light streaming from the TARDIS door, which they'd left partly open.

The Doctor stuck his head out at them inquiringly. "What's all that noise?" He frowned and looked about. "Oh dear me, is that a fire? Was that a cow?"

The two of them almost stumbled right into him, Victoria holding her side from running.

"Redcoats!" Jamie cried. "I saw one, he tried to capture me!"

"Someone's comiiiiing!" Victoria screamed fearfully, pointing back towards the orchard.

"Quick, into the TARDIS!" the Doctor said, bundling them into the door. They didn't have to be asked twice. The Doctor lunged at the door control, shutting it firmly against whatever the pursuit had been.

"Just as well. I was about to come looking for you," he said and smacked the levers to start their dematerialization.

--

"Aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiii!" screamed Susan, forgetting about the bull behind her. She flung herself towards the fading blue police box that was so unexpectedly in her own orchard and fell to the ground, her arms meeting only air.

"Not again! Noooooooooo! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

-


End file.
